Screamin' Jay Hawkins born 18 June 1929

"Screamin' Jay" Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as "I Put a Spell on You", he sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock. He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the 1989 indie film Mystery Train. 

Hawkins was born Jalacy J. Hawkins and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. At the age of 18 months, Hawkins was put up for adoption and shortly thereafter was adopted and raised by Blackfoot Confederacy. Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and later learned saxophone. He joined the US Army with a forged birth certificate in 1942 (aged 13), and allegedly served in a combat role, with his fellow soldiers and higher-ups around him ignoring the fact he was substantially underage. During this time, he also entertained the troops as part of his service. In 1944, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces, being honourably discharged in 1952. Hawkins was an avid and formidable boxer during his years in the US Army (and later Air Force) boxing circuit. In 1949, he was the middleweight boxing champion of Alaska. 

Leaving the US army in 1951 after being wounded in Korea, he joined the guitarist Tiny Grimes's Rockin' Highlanders, a rhythm & blues group that performed in kilts and tam o'shanters  and was subsequently featured on some of Grimes' recordings. When Hawkins later went solo, his first single “Why Did You Waste My Time” was performed with accompaniment from Grimes’ band. In 1956, Hawkins signed with OKeh Records. When Hawkins became a solo performer, he often performed in a stylish wardrobe of leopard skins, red leather, and wild hats. 

Hawkins' most successful recording, "I Put a Spell on You" (1956), was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to the AllMusic Guide to the Blues, "Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad." The entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where "Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon." The resulting performance was no ballad but instead a "raw, guttural track" that became his greatest commercial success and reportedly surpassed a million copies in sales, although it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts. 

                              

Despite that title, Hawkins was not primarily a bluesman. "My first idol," he said, "was Paul Robeson" - and he might have made a creditable operatic baritone, but after I Put A Spell On You he dedicated himself to contorting his voice in the service of what has been called horror rock or shock 'n' roll. The 1957 album, At Home With Screamin' Jay Hawkins, where he sang easy-listening standards like I Love Paris, was a rare diversion. 

Hawkins was primarily a performance artist, and most of his discs were less memorable than his zebra-striped capes, polka-dot suits and pink tuxedos, or his screaming, smoke-shrouded resurrection from a satin-lined coffin. Such ghoulish props - including a smoking skull named Henry - were suggested by the disc jockey and promoter Alan Freed, who booked him on his package shows. Nonetheless, Paramount Pictures cut Hawkins out of the Freed biopic, Mister Rock And Roll (1957), afraid that his appearance might offend black Americans. "I didn't care," said Hawkins. "I'm not a crusader. I'm out to make a dollar." 

He made a well-received visit to Britain in 1965, but by the end of the decade was working as a comedian in a Honolulu strip club. Various recording projects in the 1970s came to nothing, and his contribution to the movie, American Hot Wax (1978), was cut to a few scenes. Hawkins continued to work during the 1980s and 1990s, albeit at a lower temperature. He had cameo roles in the films Mystery Train (1989) and A Rage In Harlem (1991). In 1993 he won the Grammy for best gospel choir or chorus album for Recorded Live in Los Angeles  and in 1998 received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. 

Always popular in France, he had moved to the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he died after emergency surgery from an aneurysm on February 12, 2000.  He was 70 years old.  In 2001, the Greek director and writer Nicholas Triandafyllidis made the documentary Screamin' Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on Me about various stages of his life and career, including a filming of his last-ever live performance, in Athens on December 11, 1999, two months before his death.

From 1962 to 1971, Hawkins lived in Hawaii. He returned to New York after purchasing a home in Hawaii and establishing his own publishing company, sustained by the royalties from covers of "I Put a Spell On You". Hawkins had six marriages; his last wife was 31 at his death. Singing partner Shoutin' Pat Newborn stabbed him in jealousy when he married Virginia Sabellona. He had three children with his first wife and claimed variously to have 57 or 75 children in total.

 (Edited from Tony Russell @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)